Mercedes & Porsche Teamed Up To Create the Iconic 500E
Porsche needed a gearbox for the 928, and Mercedes needed a way to make their V8 fit in the 500E.
It seems almost strange thast Porsche and Mercedes would collaborate on a car, but the 500E was born for two reasons. Porsche needed an automatic gearbox that could handle a high revving and high horsepower V8 for the 928. Mercedes just happened to develop one for the 500SL.
Porsche opted for that gearbox, and in exchange, Mercedes kindly asked if the M119 V8 engine could be shoved into the W124 chassis E-class. With BMW just developing the M5, Mercedes had something to prove. And they also hadn’t fully committed to AMG just yet either.
Porsche did engineering work on the chassis and suspension to show what Mercedes needed to make it. As host Harry Metcalfe notes, “the extra 56mm of width meant it couldn’t fit on the Mercedes production line.” But it could fit on the production line of the 959 that had just concluded.
The 500E’s birth then was a bit of an unusual one, but it’s here. And it’s very true that it was built by Porsche. And with the combination of those two worlds, there’s no doubt it was fast. “In period this was really quite quick,” Metcalfe says. It’s still decent by today’s standards, too. A quoted 60 mile per hour sprint is dispatched in 5.5 seconds, with the M5 needing almost an extra second to do the same scope of work.
And it handles good too. Part of that can be pinned on the folks from Porsche, but at the same time, it still needed to be a Mercedes and slather up road imperfections. Push past about 70% and the M5 seems to have some room in the conversation again. But if you’re using it as a normal car, it’s a W124 with an added amount of fun. The interior is pure engineering where everything has a function, versus the large swath of screens we currently have. Ah buttons. We do remember you. Fondly.
But the 500E paved the way for future E-class icons. Arguably the W210 and W211 E55 AMG models each owe their respective heritage due to the success of the 500E.
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